Annalee Newitz

If you like gooey, surreal prose about a future world destroyed by a semi-satirical war, then you'll be leaping out of your knickers with glee at the U.S. release this month of Nick Harkaway's The Gone-Away World. The novel is a weird swashbuckler about truckers in a post-apocalyptic world putting out a fire and meeting monsters as well as their own tangled memories. Though the UK Guardian's Steven Poole was dubious of the book's merits, New York Magazine thought it was "gripping." I'm excited to dig into my copy, largely because it features brain-eating mermaids and pirates. Plus truckers. [The Gone-Away World via Amazon]